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MOVA Minis: Small Globes, Big Impact

April 29, 2016

The MOVA Minis are finally here! MOVA Minis pack endless wonder, beautiful design, and uncompromised innovation in a miniature globe you can hold in your hands. It’s our most compact design ever, a magical way to take your home décor and gift-giving to new levels. There’s a lot more to these small globes than meets the eye, so we’d like to go into the reasons for their development, the production process, and what we hope to achieve with this brand new line.

A Step Forward for Small

Let’s address the (tiny) elephant in the room – why did we go small? We’ve experimented with larger MOVA designs before, and while size matters, we thought we could make a bigger statement with a smaller object. Fitting our precise solar technology in a miniature form would allow us to experiment, take risks, and perhaps refine and expand on our design process, opening the door for brand new products in the future.

The new MOVA Mini (left, Starry Night design) is even smaller than the 4.5″ MOVA Globe (right).

We also wanted to open our products to a new audience of home décor seekers and creative gift givers, and the smaller size allowed us to price the MOVA Minis more competitively. Bigger globes are beautiful, but expensive to make and to purchase. We see smaller globes as more interesting and appealing to everyone, and are important for us to move our product from niche and out-of-reach to unique but accessible.

Rather than just use our popular World Map designs, we saw the small size as an opportunity to set MOVA Minis apart with its own distinct variety of designs. Last year, we conducted a design poll where the MOVA community got to select famous artworks they wanted to see on MOVA Creations, with iconic choices such as Van Gogh’s Starry Night (available now) and Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa (hopefully coming soon). Using this input, we curated our first design collection for the MOVA Minis. Art brings people together across worlds and times – a fitting source of inspiration for the MOVA Mini designs.

These iconic artworks were of course painted originally on a two dimensional surface, so manipulating them to work for a 3D spherical surface gave a chance to advance our design capability. We also created original designs like the Blue and Red Hearts MOVA Mini to create more gifting appeal, and hope to continue experimenting with new designs on our mini canvas.

The Blue and Red Hearts MOVA Minis (pictured) were created by MOVA graphic designers as charming gifts for any occasion.

Reinventing the Technology

Many would think that creating a larger size would be more challenging, but we found that going smaller proved to be a more formidable ordeal. To make a more compact globe we had to reinvent the inner workings (where the magic happens). We removed most of the inner liquid, experimented with new techniques to modify the artwork, and incorporated different types of solar cells and magnets. The whole process required intensive testing and fine-tuning.

More than just a MOVA Globe copy, the final result is a whole new product line with a more lightweight design and faster rotational speed than other MOVA Creations. The MOVA Mini is every inch a MOVA Creation in its precision and magic, yet offers its own features to delight and amaze.

Motion and art reach new heights with the compact size of the MOVA Minis. Pictured: Irises MOVA Mini.

Small Globes, Big Impact

We think there is definitely truth to the saying that the “best things come in small packages.” With its lower price point, new features, and collection of iconic designs, MOVA Minis bring a cutting-edge modern accent into the home and provide another creative way to gift a loved one. We like to think that the Minis are a small step for globes, but a big leap forward for gifts.

You can now purchase MOVA Minis along with other MOVA Creations directly on our website. Do you have ideas for designs we should have on the new Minis? Send them over to our idea submission form. And let us know your thoughts on the Minis on Facebook!